Hallowed Ground - James M. McPherson [29]
These fields were crisscrossed in 1863 by Virginia worm fences or post-and-rail fences enclosing small fields of grain, corn, and hay. Farmers in southern Pennsylvania customarily fenced in their crops and left livestock free to graze in open pastures and woods. These fences formed an obstacle to infantry moving across the fields. The Park Service intends to rebuild replica fences where they existed in 1863. But to be entirely realistic, many of the fence rails should then be thrown down, for by the afternoon of July 3, 1863, soldiers of both armies had already done precisely that during the previous two days. And when the Confederate infantry attacked across these fields, details of soldiers ran ahead of the main body to pull down many of the remaining rails.
That morning Lee and Longstreet had again disagreed about tactical plans for the day. Longstreet had informed Lee shortly after dawn, “General, I have had my scouts out all night, and I find that you still have an excellent chance to move around to the left of Meade's army and maneuver him into attacking us.” But Lee was no more in the mood for such a move than he had been twenty-four hours earlier. “The enemy is there,” he said, pointing toward the Union line, and “I am going to take them where they are.” He ordered Longstreet to prepare Pickett's fresh division and most of the brigades in Hill's two divisions that had fought on July 1—about twelve thousand men altogether—for an assault on the Union center near that copse of trees. They would be supported by other brigades from Major General Richard Anderson's division of Hill's corps.
The attackers would have to advance across these open fields in front of us, under artillery fire almost every step of the way. When they got across the stout post-and-rail fences lining the Emmitsburg Road (most of which had not been pulled down), they would come under rifle fire from Union infantry sheltered by stone walls, fences, and shallow trenches. “General Lee,” Longstreet later reported himself to have said, “I have been a soldier all my life. I have been with soldiers engaged in fights by couples, by squads, companies, regiments, divisions, and armies, and should know as well as anyone what soldiers can do. It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arrayed for battle can take that position.”
Irritated by this near-insubordination, Lee replied impatiently that his army had overcome similar odds before—the implication being that Longstreet had not been present at Chancellorsville and therefore did not know what he was talking about—and they could do it again. Longstreet was his senior corps commander, and Lee wanted him to organize the attack despite his reluctance. “My heart was heavy,” Longstreet recalled. “I could see the desperate and hopeless nature of the charge and the cruel slaughter it would cause. That day at Gettysburg was the saddest of my life.”
Longstreet's account may have been colored by hindsight. On the other hand, Confederate officers noted his heavy countenance as he organized the artillery for bombardment and the infantry for attack. He would have six brigades in addition to Pickett's three in the primary attack, and at least two more in support. Except for Pickett's division, these troops would not come from his own corps, which had been too badly shot up the previous day to be ready to fight again. Instead, the other six brigades in the primary attack would come from Henry Heth's and Dorsey Pender's divisions of A. P. Hill's corps. They had been badly mangled on July 1, but at least the survivors had had a day of rest. They would not be under their usual commanders, however; both Heth and Pender had been wounded on that first day (Pender would die of his wound two weeks later). Brigadier Generals J. Johnston Pettigrew and Isaac Trimble took their places. Four of the six brigades in these two divisions were also under new commanders this